Thursday, February 19, 2015

Grandpa died when I was three and Grandma never had much. But every year at Christmas she had something for everyone of her 39 grandchildren. Mittens, pillow cases, hats, scarfs, and whatever else she could make. I can only imagine that she felt somewhat sad that we didn't get as excited about our gifts as she wanted us to be. It's too bad it takes growing older ourselves to understand and appreciate what she did for us. Her sacrifice, our reward. Wish she was here so I tell her that now I understand how nice those gifts really were.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Photo Challenge #9: Winter Is Coming from Jack of all BrewsThis week's challenge was to take advantage of our winter landscape and try to take some pictures relating to snow, ice, or frost. Or for anyone living in a nicer clime, I just left it as "go take some pictures outside so we can with we were there!"

The photos I chose were from a couple of years back.

I like a good snow about once a year

and then I'm ready for springs return.

One advantage to a big snow is having your kids trapped at home!

I'm getting a little old for sledding but there were some great photo ops!!

I really liked the way the Superman logo came into focus on this shot!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Thirty Word Thursday challenge from http://treasures-found.blogspot.com/The premise of 30 Words Thursdays is simple...Take an image (preferably one you shot, or have permission to use).Write 30 Words about it. No more. No less.Post it each Thursday.

My wife found Franklin hiding behind a chair after
Christmas.

He now sits in his chair in our
living room reminding us that in today’s fast paced world; simplicity wins!

Sunday, January 18, 2015

I'm Burning For You! For this challenge we will be trying out the classic photography method of Burning In. In the old days of film, this technique was used during developing to darken areas of the film selectively. One would basically hold a tinted or opaque card with central clear area over the developing film--allowing more light to hit a specific area of the print and hence more exposure. This resulted in a darker or "burned in" area where you want it. Now with photo editing programs one can imitate this effect with much less trial and error. So this week take a picture--preferably one where the contrast isn't as great as you would like it--and use this technique to add more contrast or shadow to select areas of the photo.

I chose to use some photos from a winter trip to San Antonio where we visited some of the missions. I took these shots with a Kodak Easyshare (not my preference but I left my Canon at home) so I didn't have the control I wanted when I took them. All edits were done with Picasa.

This is the original and it seemed a bit washed out.

I added some basic shadow to the picture and think it creates a great contrast.

Again in this original it seemed to lack contrast.

I purposely over did it a bit on the shadow to make the cross stand out.

This original wasn't too bad but I wanted to see what adding some shadow would do.

Bringing in the shadow brought in just a bit more contrast and I really liked thesilhouette result on the tree.

About Me

I love photography but I will always be an amateur. I started taking pictures in my teens with my Canon TX and have been hooked ever since. I’ve gone through several cameras (almost all Canon’s) and thousands of pictures and now I want to share a few of my favorites. Please enjoy the beauty that God has put before us that I’ve been able to capture through the lens of my camera.